"One of Dali's greatest paintings from the mid-1920s, not exhibited since 1927. The influence of Picasso is manifest. It develops the theme of Saint Sebastian that so fascinated Lorca [Federico García Lorca] and Dali." (Caption); "The greatest...

"Action behind the sheet, in the presence of the ubiquitous lion. Dali said the painting referred to his and Gala's repudiation by his father. There are allusions to Gala's operation, which Dali feared might be fatal." (Caption); "During his stay,...

"Dali at his miniaturist best in a tiny work expressive of his sexual anxieties." (Caption); "In the Maldoror illustrations we also find the presence of a slightly older Dali, the same child who, in The Spectre of Sex Appeal, stares transfixed,...

“Truth or consequence and believe-it-or-not notions umbrella Colescott’s work. Whether replacing Old Master work subjects with Black images or revealing the fantasies held about Black men and women, the subtext is race and sex and the power...

"The First Days of Spring inaugurated a series of works in which, determined to be more Surrealist than the Surrealists themselves, Dali elaborated a symbolic language for delineating, with microscopic precision, his erotic obsessions. It deserves,...

"To the right of the photograph [referring to the photograph in Dali's painting The First Days of Spring, 1929] we find the first appearance of an icon soon to proliferate in Dali's work: a waxy-complexioned head with closed eyes, long eyelashes,...

"In this collage elements such as Charles Atlas and the diagrammatized penis were pasted over a female 'art' pinup (the 'Evadne in Green Dimension' of the work's title), as though allegorizing the artist's arousal." (Caption, p.96); "The IG's...

"The dedication reads 'Painted for Paul Éluard by his friend Salvador Dalí'. Éluard, who enjoyed his erotica as much as Dali, must have been impressed by this tour de force." (Caption); "One of his earliest ventures was Board of Demented...

"The painting they refused to show in Barcelona." (Caption); "One of the most sexually provocative of the summer's paintings was Dialogue on the Beach, whose much later title, Unsatisfied Desires, clarifies its theme. The hand on the left, with its...

"The ever-present, brooding presence of Lorca [Federico García Lorca]." (Caption); "That Lorca continued to be on Dali's mind as he worked on Bacchanale is confirmed by a painting done during these months at La Pausa, The Great One-Eyed Cretin (or...

"The painting belonged to Edward James. Surely one of Dali's finest double images." (Caption); "Dali said that The Great Paranoiac had been conceived after a discussion with Josep María Sert about Arcimboldo, and that the protagonist's face is...

"The painting belonged to Edward James. The 'paranoiac-critical town' is composed of elements principally from Cadaqués and Palamós." (Caption); "The reference was to Outskirts of the Paranoiac-Critical Town, one of Dali's finest and most complex...

"Dali's variation on Paolo Uccello's work of the same title, this is probably his most sacrilegious painting." (Caption); The Profanation of the Host […] is one of Dali's most sacrilegious paintings (although later he tried to exonerate himself by...

"Dali prided himself on being the world's greatest ever painter of the female posterior." (Caption); "It was probably early in 1950 that Emmanuel Looten, a little-known Flemish poet, had made Dali the unexpected and 'gelatinous' gift of a...

"The Child-Woman is Gala, who appears here for the first time in Dali's work." (Caption); "Meanwhile, Dali had painted the first major work in which he alluded directly to the relationship with Gala that was partially to blame for his estrangement...

"One of Dali's most Freudian paintings. Indeed, the elderly gentleman helping the lady in distress seems to be Freud himself, borrowed from [Max] Ernst's Pietà or Revolution by Night." (Caption); "Illumined Pleasures is one Dali's works that most...